Recipes from Artichoke Hart & London Cartwright
Fusion dumplings
Fusion cooking is simply combining two cultures and coming up with one dish. Indeed, some will say all food is some kind of fusion which is true in many cases. Fried fish in Thai and Bratwurst in Italian Pasta, are good examples. In this dish, I combined chicken and cilantro dumplings (Chinese) with pasta sauce…
Read MoreChicken, Perogies & Polenta (left over gourmet)
Even chefs have leftovers. In fact, Artichoke Hart virtually lives off them. Once Al and the team have finished for the evening, he’ll often skip down to the huge fridge and drag out anything in plastic containers, or covered in surface wrap. This one is made up of a few straggler perogies, a small baggie…
Read MoreOysters Rockefeller
Sometimes, Artichoke Hart sees something in a kitchen store, flea market, or vendor market that piques his interest; a new utensil, cooking tool, or a serving platter that would allow for a unique presentation. Often, it would inspire a snack or a meal, like this pottery piece he found at an outdoor vendor market. It…
Read MorePerogies in Wine and Tomato Sauce
In a past life, I lived with someone of Eastern European heritage. The family loved traditional foods such as Cabbage Rolls, Halushki, and of course, Perogies. But if you didn’t serve the latter with butter, onions, bacon and sour cream, it was sacrilege. Upon leaving that household, I decided that the delicious little dumplings deserved…
Read MoreCrusted Monkfish
When Artichoke Hart went into Young Oppenheimer’s Grocery Store, (New York Fried, Sunao Publishing) he was surprised to see the wide array of fish available. For such a town so close to water (Lake Ontario), it still seemed odd to find fish that were common to the Atlantic. This monkfish was sitting on ice and…
Read MoreSausage in Red Wine
Once again, Artichoke Hart found himself with an excess of non-drinkable red wine. And so, searching for recipes that utilized other excess-purchased products–like sausage–he came across this simple dish that was perfect for a late afternoon barbeque on the terrace at the Complex in Oswego. (New York Fried, Sunao Publishing). Though simple, if patient with…
Read MoreDrunken Pasta
I can’t think of a better dish during self-isolation (Covid-19). With all that extra wine sitting around, and not wanting to drink all day, I came up with a plan for dinner: drunken pasta. Now, despite using 2 cups of wine, don’t be alarmed. You won’t get drunk off this dish. It is, however, decadent,…
Read MoreOrange Chicken
During the COVID crisis, takeout became the main source of income for the Artichoke Hart restaurant in Baltimore (other than Hart’s CIA income, of course). Simple dishes were both popular, easy and quick to make, and were low cost: perfect for the situation where gourmet-style dishes were required but needed to be simple enough to…
Read MoreCherry Tomato Pasta
Even though we’re all supposed to stay home during the COVID crisis, a quick drive out to the country seemed feasible when the sun first came out. I found a responsible farm not far from home that was selling their produce, plants and flowers. I picked up some flowers to freshen up the dining room…
Read MoreComfort Italian in time of Crisis
Sausage and Grapes with Mashed This is my first post since the COVID-19 crisis began and we’re all inundated with news and opinion. So this is a comfort dish from–of all places–Italy, where they know how to create great flavour blends from the most unlikely combinations. I’ve posted the recipe before but during these difficult…
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